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81GHz diamond semiconductor created

Sparky's

Sparky's

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 11, 2004
871
0
Just think if the government was to get into the CPU race instead of the arms race!!

With the recent announcements of hotter than ever processors, semiconductor makers are facing a profound quandry. Customers are demanding more and more performance, which requires smaller and smaller transistors. As the CPU becomes physically smaller, thermal dissipation problems become more pronounced. Even with heat spreaders, dissipating nearly a hundred continuous watts of heat from an area not much larger than one square centimeter is a vexing problem that's only getting worse. Chip manufacturers are casting about, looking for anything that might stave off turning their silicon masterpieces into molten goop.
Click to expand...
(full article)
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Aug/gee20030827021485.htm
 
i bet a lot of folk around here would love to run folding on a computer based around an 81ghz ( :eek: ) proc. that would sure help on the quest to become #1!! :D
 
Maybe these damn Tinkers would be finished in a few hours instead of 14 days like my last one, and now my current one. :(
 
Well, using the fabricated diamonds this might eventually happen, only thing is that their saying a decade or more for actually getting these things in CPUs....

Good to know that there are some decent options, though. 100 GHz - wow :D

Now, one thing that I'm curious about. Diamonds can take the heat and keep working....so you have a 200° C CPU running in your machine - that would melt the plastic near it - you'll need to have a really decent cooling system...

D
 
81GHz diamond semiconductor created

does it come in a Dual configuration??? :p :p :p
 
Mr. Anderson said:
Now, one thing that I'm curious about. Diamonds can take the heat and keep working....so you have a 200° C CPU running in your machine - that would melt the plastic near it - you'll need to have a really decent cooling system...D
Click to expand...

Exactly what I was thinking Mr. A! To keep the interior from melting, your hard disk from warping and other components from melting into slag, maybe they could hook these chips up to a hot water tank. Just think hot showers courtesy of your 100GHz Mac! :)

** Note for dual processors, I would try to sell Apple on a 'toaster' option for the new tower, and buy Stock in Pop-Tarts. :D
 
Raid said:
Exactly what I was thinking Mr. A! To keep the interior from melting, your hard disk from warping and other components from melting into slag, maybe they could hook these chips up to a hot water tank. Just think hot showers courtesy of your 100GHz Mac! :)

** Note for dual processors, I would try to sell Apple on a 'toaster' option for the new tower, and buy Stock in Pop-Tarts. :D
Click to expand...

i can see it now: waterproof touch-screen LCDs in your shower so you can compute while taking a hot shower courtesy of your mac. then breakfast waiting for you when you get out. they could even have an optional griddle or something to put on there. it would be the ultimate in home convenience! :D
 
Amazing and... HILARIOUS!

After reading Mr. Anderson's response I got an image in my head. Picture if you will ten years from now, setting up your new quad 200ghz PowerMac. You boot up, your Mac chimes and boots into OS X.C. Then the magnesium casing catches fire and a ball of blue-white flame burns through the top of your desk, your floor, the earth's crust... with the chips happily ticking along trying to find your Meganet connection.

Now for all you PowerBook hooligans...
 
the article only mentioned Intel as interested in the diamond idea. I wonder if Apple will eventually end up with Intel or will IBM join the bandwagon of diamond processing units.
 
evolu said:
this article is a crazy read about companies trying to create fake diamonds for semiconductor use, and what they have gone through in the process..
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they're not fake, they're just man made - big difference. When the first ones came out, no one could tell the difference between a man made and natural :D

D
 
I've finally found a use for that random tank of liquid nitrogen tank in my garage. For cooling my 81 Ghz PowerMac G18 of course. :D
 
A 81GHz (12.3psec) transistor does not do an awful lot. The only thing it can do is invert a signal from positive to negative, or negative to positive.

You need to string multiple transistors along to do real work, and that would make it less than 81GHz.

Also, diamonds would need to be grown as a single crystal, and I foresee DeBeers sending its corporate-espionage-assassin hitmen to kill the people that seek to grow diamonds. That would eat into their bread-and-butter. No chance they are going to allow that to happen.

Unfortunately, real diamonds are not found in large enough sizes with which to base a semiconductor factory out of. Plus, the sizes are not consistent, and so robotic handling of natural diamonds would be problematic. Plus, the orientation of the crystal is not consistent either.

I don't see DeBeers letting this happen anytime soon. They have had a monopoly on the diamond business for centuries, and with that, money and influence. About the only thing that would do it is if all of a sudden people didn't value their diamonds anymore. I think if the artificial limit on diamond availability were not in place, sapphires or rubies would be more valuable than diamonds.

What is a diamond? Compressed carbon in a tetrahedral configuration. How common is carbon in this Earth? Heck, we have carbon in the air!!!
 
evolu said:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond.html

not if deBeers can help it.

this article is a crazy read about companies trying to create fake diamonds for semiconductor use, and what they have gone through in the process..
Click to expand...

Yes and this article was posted here before.


We had a large debate on how man made diamonds cost less and if they are still worth the 'real' diamonds value.

Also DeBeers is an evil company.
 
MongoTheGeek said:
Probably on of the leading reasons apartheid lasted so long.
Click to expand...

Maybe. But I think the reason apartheid or any of the various tyrannies lasted so long is because people did not have the means and reason to keep the government afraid of the people. :eek:
 
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